Leading Lady
by gerbilHunter
Summary: Two women have a conversation in the woods about the past, and maybe the future. Set post So the Drama, but season four is ignored. More a writing exercise than an actual story. Rated T for themes, not scenes.


Leading Lady

Two women have a conversation in the woods, about the past and, maybe, the future. Set post So the Drama, but season four is ignored. Rated T for themes, not scenes.

There are well over nine thousand Kim Possible stories on FFN. This one has certainly been told before, and better. But this is my attempt.

Kim Possible and the entire Possible universe are owned by Disney, and are used here without permission in an original tale intended solely for entertainment.

* * *

Kim Possible stood at the edge of the woods in southwestern Canada, on the side of a hill overlooking a modest house in the clearing below. It wasn't a big house, nor an impressive one. A single floor, built on a slab, with three bedrooms. A two-car garage attached by a covered walkway. Painted pale green, with dark green accents. The windowless outbuilding fifty feet away from it was twenty feet by thirty. Knowing who owned the house, Kim guessed it was a dojo. She would have to get close to it to find out, however, and that could be dangerous. She really had no idea what kind of reception she might find here.

 _Four months_ , Kim thought to herself. Four months since she had decided to start this search, four months spent mostly waiting for Wade to find something. Tracing the activities of the best thief in the world, trying to guess from bits and pieces of information where she might be going, where she might be hiding. Finally following a payment from a Brazilian aircraft manufacturer to a bank in Panama with poor computer security. From there, money had flowed to six accounts, one of them a small bank in semi-rural Canada. And from there, finally, a hacked ATM camera had given them a picture. It was black and white, and the person's head had been tucked down and in, but Kim knew it when she saw it. It was a small business account, Omnicentric Ventures, incorporated by a local lawyer for a single owner. But those were Shego's cheekbones.

The redhead started as lights came on in the house. Evening was deepening, and she imagined she could feel a slight breeze in the chill Spring air. _I should probably just go down there and knock on the door. I just don't want her to run when she sees me coming._ She hefted the small backpack she had set down by her feet, and was about to take a step when she heard a soft voice behind her, full of lethal menace.

"Don't move. There's a shotgun aimed at the small of your back."

Kim froze. She knew the voice, and her heart raced to hear it. _Is it the person or the threat that's making me unable to breathe_ , she wondered. Keeping her voice calm, she said aloud, "That's no way to greet an old friend, Shego."

"Bloody hell! What are you doing here, Possible? Stop!" she barked as Kim began to turn. "Hands where I can see them, and you just keep looking at the house." Kim settled back into her previous stance. "Didn't recognize you in the jacket, with your hair pulled back and the cap on, Kim. And without the buffoon. But I should have known that when they found me, they'd send you to try to bring me in."

"I'm not here to arrest you. I just want to talk."

"Kim. You spent how long sneaking through the woods to find a place to spy on me, just so we can have a little chat? Pull the other one, Princess."

There was a smile in Kim's voice as she replied. "Princess. That's more like it. That's the Shego I know."

"You don't know me at all, Possible. Again, what the hell are you doing here? Why shouldn't I drop you here in the woods and go my merry way?" There was a harshness to the thief's voice that Kim had never before heard.

"Because you don't do that sort of thing." The hero's voice was low, but confident. "How did you see me coming, by the way? Have I gotten that sloppy?"

"This is the only good place to get a look at the house. I have a couple of passive heat sensors out here, and I ping them from time to time. I knew somebody was out here, so I came to take a look."

"You're incredibly good. I never heard a sound."

"Yeah. It's what I do, Kim. And what you do is bust in on villains and arrest them."

Kim shrugged. "These days, I mostly go to college. Freshman year is a lot more than just thirteenth grade. May I turn around?"

"No. I like my odds better when I'm behind you with a shotgun."

"You don't have a gun, Shego. You've never needed a gun, and if you ever thought you did you'd retire. And when did you ever need odds to take me on?"

"Maybe you do know me a little. Doesn't mean I won't fry your sweet young ass if you move. Again, why are you here? I'm getting a little impatient."

Kim responded with a question of her own. "Why did you leave Drakken?"

"What? What's that got to do with anything?" The older woman sounded annoyed.

"It's got a lot to do with everything. Why did you leave Drakken? Why did you take off? It's been over a year."

There was a pause of several seconds. Kim waited, nervous. What would the thief say? Had this trip been for nothing?

"Because it wasn't fun any more, Kim. I left because it wasn't fun." Her voice was no longer harsh. Now she just sounded tired.

"Why not? Because I kicked you off the Bueno Nacho tower? Was it not fun because you thought you'd lose more often? Was it because of the battlesuit?" Kim kept her voice neutral.

"No. None of that. I wasn't worried about the suit, or about losing, or even about being kicked off the tower. It was all, just, more serious. Not fun any more."

"That was the best fight we ever had, Shego. I'm sorry I said I hated you at the end, and I did kind of overdo it with that last kick. But what a fight!" Kim smiled, remembering.

"Yeah, it was," and Kim could hear a wistful smile in the comet-enhanced woman's voice, as well. "But it was that good because you were so angry. Because the suit was so good. It made you as strong as me, and you were taking more chances, and not pulling any punches. The fight was good _because_ you hated me." There was sadness in the voice now.

She continued, "Has your mother ever said, 'It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt' to you?"

Kim laughed. "It's 'until someone loses an eye' in my house, and she mostly says it to the Tweebs. But yeah, I've heard it a lot."

"Well, it wasn't fun and games any more. I didn't want one of us to lose an eye, and with the way things had stepped up, it was only a matter of time. I-" The woman stopped abruptly.

Kim's heart swelled a little. _Maybe_ , she thought, _maybe Monique was right_.

"So you left Drakken. So we wouldn't fight any more."

"Yeah." Flatly. "So we wouldn't fight any more."

"And you live here. In the woods. I'd have thought you'd be somewhere more cosmopolitan."

"It's a place to relax. I like the quiet, and the solitude. I can't really relax in the cities. Cops and cameras everywhere. I visit, I have fun, but I come back here. Or at least I did. I guess I have to find a new place now."

Kim ignored that. "You didn't leave crime, though. You've done a few jobs in the last year. It was you that stole the Cooperman jewelry collection. Probably on commission. And you stole two years worth of research for that Brazilian aerospace firm."

"Yeah, well. The girl's gotta eat. It paid well. And Brazil needs the jobs." Shego didn't bother to deny it, though she had to know there was no evidence.

"But you didn't take the job from Chinese intelligence. Something about nuclear reactor control technology."

"Too dangerous."

"That's not what Monique thinks. She thinks you turned it down because you thought I wouldn't approve."

Shego snorted. "Yeah? Monique is a bonehead. Who is she, and who gave her an opinion?"

"Monique, is, well, she was, I mean..." Kim trailed off. "She's kind of my girlfriend."

"Your girlfriend? Oh, right! The really hot chick, assistant manager at Club Banana? I saw you with her a couple of times." Pause. "Wait, your girlfriend? Not 'best friend'?"

"Well, she's that too," responded the teen. "But yeah. 'Share a pillow' kind of girlfriend."

"You're gay?" The older woman's voice was incredulous. Was there an undertone of something else, Kim thought, or am I only hoping?

"Well, bisexual anyway. Hey, I was a cheerleader. Just doing my duty to millions of adolescent fantasies. You know what we girls get up to in the showers," with a twinkle of laughter.

"Kim, you're so all-American you've got the flag tattooed on your ass."

"I don't have any tattoos, thank you very much, and what has that got to do with being attracted to the occasional beautiful woman?"

"Nothing. I just never thought it of you. So Monique thinks I give a damn what you think. Even though I haven't seen you for nearly two years. And I didn't give a damn what you thought then, either."

"Yeah, she does. It's come up, a couple of times."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I told her that Wade thought you turned down the Chinese offer. And she said you did it because you knew I'd think it was wrong."

"You think everything I do is wrong, Kim. I'm a villain. You're a hero. It's your job to think I'm wrong."

"Maybe I think some things are more wrong than others. Maybe I really don't care what happens to some insanely rich guy's well-insured jewelry collection. Or to the research of a corporation that can afford the competition."

"Whatever, Kim. Don't care."

"That's okay. I think she's wrong, anyway."

Kim turned around, slowly. Shego was standing eight feet away, shadowed by trees as the sun sank over the house. She wore a light pullover and snug slacks, clothes that wouldn't snag and in which she could move easily. A top brand of athletic shoes gave her traction. Her hair was pulled back in a long, loose braid. Her hands, no shotgun in sight, hung loose and ready at her sides. She squinted against an errant ray of sunlight.

Kim studied the older woman's face as she spoke. "I don't think you need me to be your conscience. I think you have one of your own. I don't think you care what I think. But I do think you care about me."

Shego snorted. "Dream on, Princess."

Kim smiled. "Princess. Cupcake. All those pet names. All the teasing.

"You say you don't care, but you left because you didn't want to hurt me. You've never followed up after knocking me down. You could have killed me a half-dozen times, but you left me tied up, instead. Or you just sneered at me and walked away. It took me my whole senior year to realize it, but despite everything you said, all the fighting we did, you never really tried to hurt me. Not seriously, anyway."

"You were just a kid, Princess. A talented kid, but just a kid."

"But I was growing up, wasn't I? I wasn't going to be just a kid much longer.

"You want to know why I'm here. Monique is why I'm here. Months ago, she told me that she was happy to be my sometimes girl, the girl I wake up with sometimes. She didn't mind keeping our relationship quiet, because she didn't think it was permanent. She said she would be my best friend forever, but she didn't think she'd be my girlfriend much longer.

"Because, she said, she was tired of being the stand-in for the woman I really wanted."

Kim took a step forward now, closer to the thief. Shego saw that she had filled out a bit; she was still lean and fit, but clearly no longer a child. Her face was shadowed, the sun finally setting behind her, but Shego knew those olive eyes as well as she knew the emerald ones that she saw every day in the mirror. She knew the determination on that face, that hummed in the voice as the hero continued.

"I didn't want to believe it, but she was right. I'd wake up next to her, with all that beautiful black hair on the pillow, and for just a second I would imagine it wasn't her. I thought about all the times you teased me, all the pet names. You never even tried to hide it, did you? Monique says it was obvious to everyone but me. But I was just so stupid, so naïve."

Kim took another step forward, her eyes never leaving Shego's. The thief tensed, as if to flee. "You're right. I was just a kid. I'm nineteen now, Shego. I'm still young, and maybe I'm still stupid, and maybe I'm still naïve. But I'm not lying to myself any more. I can't lie to Monique, and I won't lie to you."

Another step, and now the hero reached forward and took the villain's hands in her own. They felt hot, and the woman's breath caught for a second. In a low, ragged voice, Shego asked, "What do you want, Kim? What are you here for?"

Kim pulled gently on the hands in hers. Her face moved slowly towards the beautiful thief's, her eyes still locked on the emerald ones before her. Only a few inches away, she said softly, "I'm here for you, Shego. Monique was right, she was a stand-in. And if all the world's a stage, it's you I want to be my leading lady. Even if the show closes in a few days, I want to give it a try." She moved again, without hesitation, rising on the balls of her feet, and pressed her lips briefly against those of the villain. "I think we can have an epic run." She withdrew a step, her eyes again on Shego's, their hands still joined.

The pale thief looked back, her expression unreadable. The silence drew out, and the hopeful redhead began to fear that she had been wrong, that this was a bad idea. She wondered if Shego would laugh, or what vicious taunt was being prepared. Then the other spoke, her voice hesitant. "We have our exits and our entrances, Kim. But we don't know our lines, or the plot, or even if this is a comedy or a tragedy. Do you really want to take this chance?"

Kim's voice was strong in the gathering darkness, full of certainty. "Yes, Shego. Yes, I really do."

"Well then, Princess, let's bring the bloody house down," and Kim's heart leapt as the taller woman pulled her in for a long, welcoming kiss.

* * *

A/N: This story grew out of an exchange in another story I was trying to write. Then I found Emperor of Dreams' "Don't Walk Away", and shelved this as being too similar, and nowhere near as good. Then I decided to finish and publish it, anyway.


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